Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Nevada Odds and Ends

-Throughout 2010 John Ensign's approval numbers held up better than you might have expected in PPP's polling- on average 39% of voters approved of him and 46% disapproved. Those are certainly bad numbers but given everything that had happened to him the previous couple years you might have expected worse.

Well the bottom's dropped out now. In the wake of his resignation only 29% of Nevada voters now approve of the job he's doing to 55% who disapprove. It's a given that Democrats don't like him but what's really plunged his numbers is that he now has the support of less than half of Republicans- 46% approval to 37% disapproval. And he has almost 2:1 disapproval with independents, with 55% giving him poor marks to only only 28% who think he's doing a good job.

Ensign's the second least popular Senator in the country out of everyone we've polled. The least popular? That would be Joe Lieberman at an identical 29% approval but a higher 58% disapproval.

-Harry Reid's pretty consistently had an approval rating in the mid-40s and a disapproval number around 50% in our polling and that's no different this time around. 43% of Nevada voters like the job he's doing to 51% who disapprove. Republicans (89%) are more unified in their dislike for him than Democrats (76%) are in their support and independents align against him 62/31. He wasn't popular when he got reelected and he isn't popular now but he can sure thank the man upstairs- or just GOP primary voters- for handing him Sharron Angle last year.

-We've found that most new Republican Governors in Obama states have quickly become very unpopular. Not so with Brian Sandoval. 44% of voters approve of him to 38% who disapprove. Those numbers are weak compared to the 57/20 favorability rating he posted on our January poll, but still he's holding up a lot better than most of his first term colleagues around the country. He's down mostly because he's lost most of his appeal to Democrats, only 19% of whom approve of him now. But he's in good standing with independents at 50/33.

In a hypothetical rematch of their contest last fall Sandoval would lead Rory Reid by an almost identical amount to his margin of victory at 51/41. That probably has a lot to do with the total collapse of the younger Reid's image over the last few months. Only 31% now have a positive opinion of him to 53% with a negative one. He was never popular but that -22 spread still represents a 10 point decline from the -12 at 39/51 that he had on our last poll before the election last fall.